Diazotroph Anabaena 33047 as a Platform for Bioproduction | The Pakrasi Lab

Anabaena sp. PCC 33047

Developing a fast growing diazotrophic cyanobacterial platform for bioproduction

Project Overview

We are developing Anabaena sp. PCC 33047, a fast-growing, photosynthetic, diazotrophic cyanobacteria as a production platform for advanced biofuels and nitrogen-containing petrochemical replacement compounds. Anabaena 33047 displays a doubling time of 3.8 hours under photoautotrophic and N₂-fixing conditions. It exhibits the highest recorded conversion rate of CO₂ into biomass in an oxygenic photosynthetic organism (3.0 g L^-1 day^-1). This cyanobacterium is high light tolerant, fixes nitrogen at an unusually high rate, and grows well in sea water. We are using a systems biology approach for the development of this novel cyanobacterial strain into a platform organism for bioproduction.

Top – Light microscopy of Anabaena 33047. Bottom – chlorophyll fluorescence of Anabaena 33047. Heterocysts do not have PSII activity and did not fluoresce.

Growth of Anabaena 33047 under different light intensities. Intensities above 1500 µE m-2s-1 resulted in a 3.8-hour doubling time during logarithmic growth, but higher final culture densities are obtained at higher light intensities.

Project Collaborators

Professor Costas D. Maranas
The Pennsylvania State University
Maranas Lab Website

Professor Maciek R. Antoniewicz
University of Delaware
Antoniewicz Lab Website

Funding Information

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Genomic Science Program under Award Number DE-SC0019386.

Publications

Anindita Bandyopadhyay, Zi Ye, Zuzana Benedikty, Martin Trtilek, and Himadri B. Pakrasi. “Antenna modification leads to enhanced nitrogenase activity in a high light tolerant cyanobacterium”. bioRxiv. (2021)